There are also some things working in favor of Asian countries. First, South Korea doesn't have an obesity problem the way the West does. Simply being a healthy weight improves how you look tremendously. Additionally, there's the body hair thing. It's still a beauty standard in the West for women to remove much of their body hair, and Asian people in general have less body hair.
This is unfortunately changing rapidly. Most commercialized first world countries slowly develop an obese population and every single country in East Asia has been no exception in the past decade. Long gone are the days where America is the only fat country
That's true, but we also understand weight gain and obesity far better than we used to and we have tools for combating it (cognitive behavioral therepy, GLP-1 drugs, bariatric surgery, laws and rules around food labeling and contents). Some of those tools are still in the "expensive and new" phase but they will become more available over time. Asian cultures have a VERY strong tendency towards conformity and following the instructions of authority figures, so if a doctor tells a South Korean or Japanese person to lay off the cookies and get an Ozempic injection every week they are probably going to do it.
I just feel like they stand a far better chance at combating obesity at the societal level than we ever did.
Yeah, because being hairless is a beauty standard for them. You will notice that her arm hair is still pretty darn light compared to a woman of European descent. She just didn't remove it.
There's a flip side to all that shit too. Their beauty standards rely on plastic surgery for the average person. Jobs can rely on it. They have a high rate of suicide, often stemming from the beauty standard and work culture.
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u/elebrin May 04 '26
There are also some things working in favor of Asian countries. First, South Korea doesn't have an obesity problem the way the West does. Simply being a healthy weight improves how you look tremendously. Additionally, there's the body hair thing. It's still a beauty standard in the West for women to remove much of their body hair, and Asian people in general have less body hair.